"I was raped" shirt: Awareness-raising or divisive?FeministingApril 8th, 2008Feminist Jennifer Baumgardner - who created the controversial "I had an abortion" shirt several years ago - has just released a new shirt as part of a rape-awareness project.Abortion and rape are subjects that are secreted away and are also surprisingly common, Ms. Baumgardner said. One in six women is a victim of sexual assault, according to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, a nonprofit sexual assault prevention and education group. According to the Department of Justice, 60 percent of sexual assaults go unreported.As she has been interviewing women for a film she is making about sexual assault, Ms. Baumgardner has heard women describing the usual reasons why they frequently don?t report rapes ? shame, humiliation, fear that ...

what's a judicial bypass (and how do you get one?)sex_ed_blogMarch 27th, 2008What would you do if you got pregnant and decided you needed an abortion? Whether or not the law required it, if you?re like 60% of pregnant teens, you would probably talk to one of your parents. If you?re in the other 40%, it?s likely that you have a pretty good reason for not wanting to tell them. That can be tricky for girls who live in the 34 states that require some parental involvement for minors to get abortions. But tricky doesn?t mean impossible. That?s because in most states girls have the option of getting something called a judicial bypass.A judicial bypass is a process where a judge can overrule parental involvement laws by saying that a girl is mature enough to decide she can have an abortion on her own. The specific steps ...

three more states reject abstinence-only funding (it's a good thing)sex_ed_blogMarch 27th, 2008In January, New Mexico became the 15th state to reject the government?s abstinence-only money. Later that month, Arizona became the 16th. In late February, Iowa brought that number to 17 with its rejection!That?s pretty exciting considering that in 1998, (the first year this money was offered), only California declined it. At the beginning of last year, only eight states had turned it down. This decision by Iowa, Arizona and New Mexico means that the number of states to say no to abstinence-only funding has more than doubled in one year?s time.So what are all these states rejecting? Basically, they're rejecting money to teach the government?s own personal set of values about sex. This has been wrapped up in a package called ?abstinence ...

Thank You Thursdays: Women in Hip HopFeministingMarch 27th, 2008As anyone who listens to the music knows, it tends to be a man's game, but there are a few brave women who have shown that MC-ing isn't sex-linked to the Y-chromosome. In my book I talk about the negative affects of growing up listening to a music that essentially told me: "Your role in the music of your generation is as eye candy, the cute girl at the party who gets freestyled about [thanks Che DeLeon], not the one who does the freestyling. Your body is your voice." There were some spit-kickin' women, and more to come, who give young women a different message, that they have every right to make their voices and lyrics and stories heard within hip hop communities. Big ups to Jill Scott, Bahamadia, Jean Graye, Lauren Hill, Queen Latifah, ...

Politician changes his name to "pro-life"FeministingMarch 25th, 2008Oh those wacky anti-choicers!A Senate candidate has legally changed his name to Pro-Life and will appear on the ballot that way this year, state election officials say.As Marvin Pro-Life Richardson, the organic strawberry farmer from Letha, 30 miles northwest of Boise, was denied the use of his middle name when he ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2006 because the state's policy bars the use of slogans on the ballot.Now, though, officials in the Idaho secretary of state's office say they have no choice because Pro-Life is his full and only name. He says he will run for the highest state office on the ballot every two years for the rest of his life, advocating murder charges for doctors who perform abortions and for women who obtain the ...

Native women's shelter loses leaseFeministingMarch 25th, 2008Via Celina's new blog, Ojibway Migisi Bineshii, the Rapid City Journal reports:A small shelter offering a temporary haven for Native American women seeking to escape domestic violence has just six weeks to find a new Rapid City home."We're just kind of shell-shocked," Karen Artichoker, manager of Cangleska, said.Cangleska's Ohitika Najin Win Oti (Standing Strong Woman) shelter has lost the lease on the home it has used as a shelter for the past seven years. [...]The shelter's original intent was to provide transitional housing for women leaving the reservation for their own safety, Artichoker said.Over the years, a growing number of local Native American women have sought refuge in the shelter. The average stay for a mother and her ...

abuse: another reason teen girls are getting pregnantsex_ed_blogMarch 25th, 2008For a number of years, I worked with teens in the Bronx. One of these was a girl named Gina. When I met Gina, she was a very pregnant high school junior. By the time I left the job she was the mother to two children. She was also missing a front tooth, thanks to Rich, father of the second. This guy, like the majority of men who father teens' babies, was a whole lot older than Gina. When Gina told me that she was pregnant again, I asked what she wanted to do. ?Well,? she said. ?I was thinking I?d get an abortion. But Rich said he?d kill me if I did.? When I tried to prod in true teacher fashion (How did this happen? Why didn?t you use a condom or take EC?), it slowly came out that the pregnancy wasn?t an accident. Gina?s boyfriend had ...

Bill Clinton Gets Riled Up About AbortionOur Bodies Our BlogMarch 4th, 2008At a campaign event in Steubenville, OH on Sunday, Bill Clinton was campaigning for Senator Clinton and was heckled by anti-choice students from the religious Franciscan University of Steubenville. Clinton responded thusly: "We disagree with you. You want to criminalize...[This is a content summary only. Click the headline to visit Our Bodies, Our Blog for the full post, links, other content and more!]

abuse: another reason teen girls are getting pregnantsex_ed_blogMarch 4th, 2008For a number of years, I worked with teens in the Bronx. One of these was a girl named Gina. When I met Gina, she was a very pregnant high school junior. By the time I left the job she was the mother to two children. She was also missing a front tooth, thanks to Rich, father of the second. This guy, like the majority of men who father teens' babies, was a whole lot older than Gina. When Gina told me that she was pregnant again, I asked what she wanted to do. ?Well,? she said. ?I was thinking I?d get an abortion. But Rich said he?d kill me if I did.? When I tried to prod in true teacher fashion (How did this happen? Why didn?t you use a condom or take EC?), it slowly came out that the pregnancy wasn?t an accident. Gina?s boyfriend had ...

does age make a difference when it comes to having sex?sex_ed_blogFebruary 26th, 2008I've known my fair share of people who had sex young. Most of them, however, didn't end up depressed, addicted to drugs or the parent to a three-year-old before finishing high school. Does that mean all of their early experiences were positive and healthy? Of course not. But neither, as a rule, were the experiences of people who waited until they were older to have sex. Many of those who waited still "forgot" to use condoms. They were still heartbroken when the person they were crazy about blew them off. They still felt pressured into doing things before they were ready. This is not to say that any of those things are the inevitable outcome of becoming sexually active. But it also isn't to say that age is everything. Self confidence, self ...